Chris Walken‘s Scotland-born mother, Rosalie Walken (1907-2010), was born out of wedlock to Mary Burgess Russell, a domestic servant, and Joseph Egen, a leather merchant who eventually served a five-year sentence for receiving and re-selling stolen goods.
In 1932 or at age 25, Rosalie travelled alone from Glasgow to New York City. She married Paul Joseph Walken, who ran a bakery in Astoria, Queens. Chris was born in 1943, but out of shame or revulsion or whatever Risalie never told him about Egen, Chris’s biological grandfather.
Chris’s signature as an actor has always been a subtle blend of chilly, underlying malice and a touch or two of perversity. One presumes that at least some of the menace stuff was inherited to some degree from Joseph Egen.